Free V/Line travel after 24-hour rail shutdown: here’s when

Two days of free V/Line travel have been announced for regional passengers after this week’s nationwide Telstra outage brought the state’s regional rail network to a standstill.

Premier Jacinta Allan confirmed this morning travel on all V/Line services would be free on Monday and Tuesday as part of a compensation package for commuters caught up in the more than 24-hour shutdown.

She said V/Line would also reimburse passengers who incurred additional travel costs during the disruption and called on Telstra to match those payments.

“It is completely unacceptable that so many Victorians were stuck without an essential service for so long,” Allan said.

“This can’t be the end of it.

“V/Line will reimburse regional rail passengers who incurred extra costs.

“I expect Telstra to match it, dollar for dollar.”

The disruption began early Wednesday after a nationwide Telstra outage knocked out critical communications used by the National Train Communications System, forcing V/Line to suspend services across the state.

While Telstra restored its network later that day, V/Line chief executive William Tieppo said engineers discovered the restored 4G train radio network was interfering with the trains’ satellite backup communications, preventing services from safely resuming.

Telstra fixed the programming issue overnight. V/Line and the Australian Rail Track Corporation then carried out safety testing on Thursday morning to confirm the communications systems were stable before trains gradually returned to service from noon.

Tieppo said V/Line and the Australian Rail Track Corporation would undertake a comprehensive review with Telstra to understand exactly what caused the communications failure and whether changes were needed.

Allan said the focus must now turn to preventing a repeat of the outage.

“Victoria expects more than just compensation from Telstra,” she said. “What we really want is change.

“Australians have endured too many major outages – and it’s always country people who bear the brunt.

“The telcos must lift their game.

“It’s time they caught up with how critical their networks have become to our essential services.”

V/Line services returned to normal on Friday after operating at reduced capacity on Thursday afternoon.